LEST the Trades Description Act be invoked, it should at once be admitted that today's At Your Service column is written without ever having been to the church which is at its centre.

The journalistic need to make bricks out of straw has arisen just once previously, and that (as Mr Stanley Holloway might have said) was a case of getting to the church on time.

This was less avoidable: at 7.30am last Sunday the lady of this house had one of her funny turns, and her funny turns can be pretty serious. The sick bay impelled.

For at least three good reasons, the plan had been to attend the 9am service at Whitworth parish church, near Spennymoor. Firstly, Whitworth was the fiefdom of the Shafto family and much of their history is there; secondly because a heritage trail and village reunion are imminent and thirdly because someone had greatly enthused about Lynda Gough, the new Vicar of Whitworth, Spennymoor and Kirk Merrington.

She'd a Spennymoor service at eight, Whitworth at nine, back to Spennymoor for ten and baptisms at 11.30. "I'll be literally running," she'd said and the photographic department may well have caught her in full flight.

Lynda, Darlington lass, is a former Memorial Hospital nurse who went to church as a teenager but doubts if she was a Christian, had ten years with house churches, returned to the Church of England but when considering ordination wanted only to be a deacon, because she didn't believe in women priests.

How may so much have been garnered? We bought her lunch two days later at the Whitworth Hall Hotel. "I'm very ordinary," she insisted.

Persuaded that her vocation was to the priesthood, she studied for a BA in Durham and an MA at Oxford, served a curacy in Hartlepool where she was much involved with the homeless - "so many of them had heroin problems" - moved to the Spennymoor area parishes in the spring.

"It's been pretty hectic, I've hardly had a moment," said Lynda, Some of her predecessors might have understood the weight of the workload.

Arriving at Whitworth in 1834, the Rev Robert Gray observed that the district had been much neglected. "I found a great portion of my parish and of Byers Green little better than infidels," he wrote. "I have reason to believe that Tudhoe is in much the same state, with a little leaven of Romanism."

Whitworth is much the smallest of the three parishes - 28 houses, 46 residents and an average Sunday congregation of between 25-30, mostly from the town. "They're a nice crowd of people, I think they just prefer a smaller church," says Verna McEneny, one of the churchwardens.

A place of worship has stood on the site since the 12th century, vicars recorded since Will Staindrop in 1427, the present church restored in 1851 from what an earlier historian called a "hideous looking structure" built 48 years previously.

Mark Shafto, known (doubtless affectionately) as Six Bottle Mark because of his capacity for port wine, had bought the Whitworth estate in 1652. It remained in the family, most famously through Bonnie Bobby, for more than 300 years.

The song about the yellow haired hero, it's said, was written by a Miss Bellasyse of nearby Brancepeth Castle who died for love of him. It became the family's electioneering song - Bobby Shafto became Durham's MP in 1797 - though not without ironic opposition amendments.

Bobbie Shafto went to court

All in gold and silver wrought,

Like a grandee as he ought,

Bonnie Bobby Shafto.

Bobby Shafto throws his gold

Right and left like knights of old,

Now we're left out in the cold

Bonnie Bobby Shafto.

Shafto generations may also have failed to endear themselves to the god- fearing folk of Whitworth by congregating in the square family pew, so thickly drawn about with curtains that only the vicar could see what they were up to, and then only from the pulpit.

In 1913, however, the family not only paid for lighting to be installed in the church but paid the electricity bill for the next 40 years, an' all.

The original family vault is in the church, a second in the churchyard described by James J Dodd in his 1897 History of Spennymoor as "the ideal place to be buried in."

It's because of the Shafto connection that Whitworth attracts so many visitors, Verna and fellow churchwarden Linda Crowe persuaded not just to launch a heritage trail and photographic exhibition on July 5, but to organise a reunion that day for villagers of Whitworth and Page Bank, across the River Wear.

"Just about the only time that people come back together for a good chin wag is at funerals," says Verna. "It will be good to have something to be cheerful about for once."

If the lady is not for turning, next time we've promised to be there.

l The Whitworth and Page Bank reunion and photographic exhibition is on Saturday July 5 from 3-10pm in the marquee and walled garden at the Whitworth Hall Hotel and the following day from 12-5pm. The Whitworth heritage trail and accompanying booklet, funded by the National Lottery's Awards for All scheme, will be launched the same day. Details from Verna McEneny, (01388) 817824.

Whitworth parish church will now be open every first Sunday afternoon until October. Normal Sunday service is at 9am.

PS: A busy weekend for our friends at St Mary Magdalene's church in Belmont, Durham.

Today from 10-3pm there's a summer fayre in the garden of Belmont Grange nursing home and from 10-6pm sponsored piano playing on two grand pianos in the church.

Tonight from 6pm the pianos will be in concert, the Bishop of Jarrow present, and tomorrow at 9am the Bishop consecrates land near St Mary's for a garden of remembrance.

Much of the activity is geared towards raising funds for a new parish hall, though sponsorship will be divided equally with St Cuthbert's Hospice. Much more of all of this next week.

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